The marching orders were: I want a parade like the one in France,” said a military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the planning discussions are supposed to remain confidential. “This is being worked at the highest levels of the military.”

Shows of military strength are not typical in the United States — and they don’t come cheap. The cost of shipping Abrams tanks and high-tech hardware to Washington could run in the millions, and military officials said it was unclear how they would pay for it.

“The one in France” was the Bastille Day parade that Trump attended last summer, complete with soldiers in uniform marching in formation down the Champs-Elysees, followed by tanks and other military hardware. He’s so desperate to be like his BFF Vlad, isn’t he? So pathetic. Guys, we are *this* close to him showing up somewhere in a fake general’s uniform with gold epaulettes. I’m telling you, it’s gonna happen.

The lengths that Trump’s fluffers and enablers will go to appease their baby POTUS is depressing. This is the end, folks. America doesn’t do military parades. We honor the military at every single sporting event, every Veterans Day and Memorial Day, every corporate freebie and discount from coast to coast. This parade isn’t about honoring the military, it’s about honoring Trump. Get real.

This isn’t who we are. If you haven’t read it yet, let me direct you to The Atlantic’s recent piece urging everyone to “boycott the GOP.” The article isn’t directed at people like me, who have always boycotted the Republican Party, but rather normal Republicans (you know, pre-Tea Party), the ones who believed in low taxes and deregulation but weren’t fascist dictator wannabes with friends in the Klan. Those people have been awfully quiet when it counted lately, and it’s time for them to step up, hold their noses, and vote straight-ticket Democrat to teach this current brand of crazies a lesson. Because electoral losses are the only thing the current bunch of GOPers holding office will hear. They are only in it for the power, so it’s the power they must lose:

The Republican Party, as an institution, has become a danger to the rule of law and the integrity of our democracy. The problem is not just Donald Trump; it’s the larger political apparatus that made a conscious decision to enable him. In a two-party system, nonpartisanship works only if both parties are consistent democratic actors. If one of them is not predictably so, the space for nonpartisans evaporates. We’re thus driven to believe that the best hope of defending the country from Trump’s Republican enablers, and of saving the Republican Party from itself, is to do as Toren Beasley did: vote mindlessly and mechanically against Republicans at every opportunity, until the party either rights itself or implodes (very preferably the former).

These are strong independents saying this, people who agree with many Republican policies. They’re saying that Trump and his enablers are destroying too many political norms, tearing apart too much of our political fabric. They must be stopped, and the ballot box is where we do these things in a civilized country. Even if you love Neil Gorsuch, even if you think the tax cut is Groovy McSmoothie, you should STILL vote against the Republicans because the price of these gains is too high.

A military parade is the kind of authoritarian, bullshit dictator move that is a visible step down a very dangerous path. We’ve already taken too many steps in that direction. Stop it now. Pull the plug.

Donald Trump and the entire Rethuglican Party must be brought down. There’s not enough discussion about the corruption, criminality and evil in the Rethuglican Party. Media so in the tank for them they will grasp at any Rethug who doesn’t appear to be bat crap crazy (though their bar is very low).

Oh, c’mon now! It’s just symbolic militarism and like symbolic deism it’s only meant to make people feel better about their shitty lives–lives made shittier by KKKim-Chee-toh and his KKKroniez.

I don’t watch the news but what I glean from variojs sources helps me to understand how Supreme Court justices in other countries sometimes are tbe ONLY voice against the evil and corruption of officialdom and that makes me feel better until I realize our SCotUS is in the pocket of the oligarchs.

Longtime fan, SB, but this is just another attempted-distracting “Oh look, a bird” spouting by he whose name I can’t say aloud. Ignore it. And, please don’t reply with the “They ignored Hitler until it was too late” BS. If we can truly conduct ourselves as if this not-my-president doesn’t exist, his head will implode. Hopefully, sooner than later. Then, we’ll deal with Pence, in his time. Lastly, November can’t come fast enough.

I fear the partisan wrangling in the U.S. media has become rather like the background radiation detected from the Big Bang. The buzz is there but the only people that really pay attention are astronomers and physicists. Readers like us and authors like our hostess are vested in this business. Most other people are just trying to keep their lights on and tune it out with some sort of bemused rationalization like “Just another day in the Trump administration.” Until our allies and the marketplace begin to push back against Trump like they do other rogue leaders I fear we’re screwed. Ergo I can be a passionate supporter of The Atlantic strategy.
2018-GET OUT THE VOTE!

‘This isn’t who we are. ‘ — You guys keep saying that, but hasn’t it become clear to you yet that perhaps you don’t know who we are ? I mean .. outside of blue city echo chambers where you guys pile on top of each other and tell reinforce each others beliefs. It’s like someone trying to convince anyone that Nashville is *anything* like Tennessee. It most surely as fuck is not.

In all likelihood Trump gets reelected. The economy is doing great. His approval is improving. It’s near 50 in some polls. He could get through with mid-30s. They poll a bunch of assholes in LA County and DC and we all know it now.

I doubt you will even take the House. You’ll make gains in the states of course but holy fuck you are down 1100, 1200 seats from a few years ago.

Ya know Leroy,
Back in the day you romanticize about with your imitation Bo Duke Facebook page a REAL Southerner, upon finding out you’d come down from Vermont to ogle his sister’s daisy dukes, would dispossess you of an important part of your anatomy. (Native of Birmingham, Alabama here
-“The Heart of Dixie” for the uninformed). You’re about as genuine as the trinkets sold in the Pigeon Forge gift shops. So hustle on back home and make some maple syrup BOY, my pancakes are getting cold.